The public is increasingly more conscious of the importance of a proper diet for health maintenance and disease prevention. However, the numerous different and often conflicting dietary goals are so complex that it is very difficult if not impossible for the average person (referred to below as a "dieter") to understand and fully implement an optimum diet planning and control system. For example, such a diet which maximizes health concerns would control the intake of cholesterol and different types of fats, as well as calories, while optimizing levels of macronutrients (e.g., protein, carbohydrates and fats) and micronutrients (e.g., vitamins and minerals) and providing adequate dietary fiber.
The problem of planning and controlling a healthful diet goes beyond the usual health concerns and exists with respect to special diet situations such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Until now, any assistance available to the dieter has been of limited utility, leaving too much additional planning in the hands of the dieter who usually lacks knowledge in the field of nutrition and hence is incapable of fully and properly implementing a completely adequate diet. More specifically, prior approaches to the planning and control of a person's diet have supplied the dieter with general food and beverage categories which should be consumed; for example, meat, vegetables, milk, fish, etc. However, dieters do not consume general food and beverage categories; they consume only specific food and beverage items. However, specific food and beverage items which are actually available to the dieter are so diverse in comparison with each other that it is difficult if not impossible for the average dieter to convert broad categories into specific foods and beverages, i.e. to plan actual diets, while still maintaining control over all of the above-described parameters.
These prior approaches have included various physical devices to assist the dieter in counting or otherwise planning his or her diet. These have included manipulatable devices as shown for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,606,555 and 4,625,675 and various coupon and label systems as shown for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,310,316; 4,652,241; and 4,689,019. However, since these devices, coupons, labels, and the like relate only to the control of broad food and beverage categories, they do not solve the problem addressed above of assisting the dieter by providing a plan for consuming specific food and beverage items which satisfy all of the complex goals of a healthy diet.
One procedure for providing a diet which is highly specific to certain foods and beverages is simply to provide a single fixed list for meals on a given day. However, a mere fixed list has the disadvantage of being too rigid and therefore rapidly becoming boring to the dieter after a relatively short period of time. In contrast thereto, a successful diet comprised of specific food and beverage items must include a mechanism for providing sufficient versatility to maintain the interest of the dieter for an extended period of time.
Thus, a need exists for a system and method which will provide to the dieter highly specific food and beverage information which will satisfy all of the complex health goals of the dieter, including meeting requirements for calories, cholesterol, macronutrients and micronutrients, which is sufficiently flexible to permit day-to-day variation of the selected foods and beverages within the plan and which is embodied in a mechanism which can be easily and conveniently utilized by the dieter.